And then as the whole truth burst upon me, in one of those successive shocks, with which an astounding event thunders its way, so to speak, into the mind, I shouted: “What a villain! what a trickster! what a hypocrite! Never by word or look, often as I have tried to get the truth out of him, has he given me reason to believe he cared a fig for Conny!”
And then her treachery smote me, and I gasped—I gasped!
At this juncture my aunt went into hysterics.
What an evening that was! I wouldn’t go through such a time again, not for the love of all the fair women Mr. Tennyson dreamt about. Dinner! We had no dinner. It was served—we were summoned to it—but my aunt was in bed, and the sight of food made my uncle speechless. I swallowed some soup, quite unconsciously, because it was set before me; but my grief revolted at solids. I could as soon have eaten the cook as the slice of beef which my uncle, with the tears standing in his eyes, blindly hacked off for me.
Oh daughters, dear! what do you mean by making your papas and mammas wretched? Can’t you love decently, and marry becomingly? Do you think it fun to go running off o’ nights with men, and wringing tears out of hearts you were sent into this world to soothe and bless? Is romance spiced by a mother’s lamentations? Is love sweetened by a father’s groans? If you think this, get along with you, do, to the Cannibal Islands, where the people who marry, first propitiate the gods by the sacrifice of a relation.
As I beheld my uncle’s tears, I cried to myself: “Does a man marry for this? Does he soothe and sue, make presents, and receive them back, grow cynical, and leave his beard unshorn, laugh at papa’s stale stories, and submit to mamma’s acidity, for this? Does he take upon himself the responsibilities of a British housekeeper, write cheques for landlords, wrangle with tradespeople, be interfered with by his wife’s connections, hunt after monthly nurses, sit up all night with windy babies—to be made miserable in his old age?”
Art thou a bachelor who readest this? I warn thee—leave well alone. Hast thou a landlady? Incline thine ear over the staircase when thou hearest her wearied husband enter, listen to her greeting, withdraw to thy one room, flop upon thy knees, and breathe thy little prayer of gratitude that the hat thou puttest on thy head covereth thy family, and crowneth thee lord of thyself. Accept this chapter as a tombstone, under which moulder the bones of an Experience. If there be no epitaph, it is because I choose not to write thee a lie. Ponder and pause, then go thy ways, moralising on the lot of others, and grateful for thine own.